March 1, 2002

John Q.

By PETER M. NICHOLS

VIOLENCE A woman stomps her boyfriend in the emergency room. (He has it coming.) There is other scattered violence, none of it too dire. Surgical scenes are graphic.

SEX None.

PROFANITY Strong profanity, if not unbridled obscenity.

FOR WHICH CHILDREN?

UNDER AGE 10 Too intense and otherwise unsuitable for young children.

AGES 10-13 Arguments can be made on either side of the attendance issue. The film is a hit, but they would be missing little.

ohn Q. Archibald (Mr. Washington) is straightened out on a few things at the hospital. With a heart three times as large as normal, his son (Daniel E. Smith) needs a transplant. That will be $250,000, provided that a donor can be found. John's medical insurance has been cut at the plant where he works. The hospital regards him as a cash customer and demands $75,000 down payment. The alternative is to forget the operation. "You might want to make this a happy time. Say goodbye," replies the ice queen (Ms. Heche) who administrates such matters.

Not only that, but the hospital will expel the boy if John doesn't pay the daily costs. A transfer to another hospital is ill-advised. The crack surgeon (Mr. Woods) who would do the operation if John had the money says he's sorry but there is no way he can intercede. John and his frantic wife (Ms. Elise) sell their possessions, but a refrigerator and the rest of it add up to a fraction of the tab. Then John has an idea. Grabbing a hand gun, he marches into the hospital, collars the surgeon, takes an emergency room full of patients hostage and announces that the transplant happens or else.

What is remarkable about this film up to this point and certainly afterward is that it is so thoroughly formulaic and hackneyed. In the hullabaloo a sage hostage negotiator (Mr. Duvall) is dispatched. The situation also flushes the usual television news person intent on self-glorification and a ridiculously overdressed police commander (Mr. Liotta) who would jockey John into position for a sniper to take him out.

But John is really a kindly, level-headed fellow who is attentive to his hostages' medical and personal problems. The surgeon is all right, too, and emergency room attendants get to excoriate the sorry state of medical coverage in this country. Out on a highway a helicopter leaves a crash scene with the needed organ. Inside the emergency room John decides on a desperate measure. (Don't try any of this at home.)